Radiant Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise confirmed for the Pokemon TCG expansion

The Pokemon TCG's crossover with the franchise's most successful mobile title in Pokemon GO is approaching. Due to this, The Pokemon Company has enlightened players with card previews for the upcoming Pokemon GO TCG expansion, including the Radiant Kanto starter Pokemon.

The three Radiant starters take after the Shiny forms of Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. However, these Radiant Pokemon are also immensely powerful, containing abilities so impressive that Pokemon TCG players are limited to only one such Pokemon in their deck at a time.

Considering the power and scope of these cards, it's certainly worth breaking down each card's potential. Pokemon TCG players can find each Radiant starter's info below.

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Pokemon TCG: Examining each Radiant starter Pokemon

Radiant Venusaur

Radiant Venusaur's new card art (Image via The Pokemon Company)

The Pokemon TCG's Pokemon GO expansion kicks off its Radiant collection with the third Pokemon in the Pokedex. This Venusaur has a delightful coloration, including a gold flower atop its back to signify its status as a Shiny Pokemon. Its lone attack is Pollen Hazard, which deals 90 damage and leaves the target burned, confused, and poisoned.

Inflicting three status effects at once is impressive, making Pollen Hazard an attack foes need to look out for. Radiant Venusaur also possesses the ability Sunny Bloom, which allows Pokemon TCG players to draw cards from their deck until they have four in their hand at the end of their turn.

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Radiant Charizard

Radiant Charizard's card art in the Pokemon GO expansion (Image via @PokemonTCG/Twitter)

Pokemon fans everywhere absolutely love Shiny Charizard, and there are no two ways about that. Its dark coloration gives it an even more imposing appearance than it already had.

Radiant Charizard's attack of choice is Combustion Blast, dealing a whopping 250 damage but requiring Pokemon TCG players to pass on using the attack on their next turn. Furthermore, this Charizard card sports the ability Excited Heart, which makes its Combustion Blast cheaper in terms of energy cost for each prize card an opponent has already collected.

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Radiant Blastoise

Radiant Blastoise's card art leaked quite sometime before the official announcement (Image via Absolute Speciment/Youtube)

To complete the set of Radiant Kanto starters in the TCG, Radiant Blastoise is here. Much like Charizard, Blastoise possesses an attack that requires a recharge; the attack in question is Torrential Cannon. This move deals 170 damage and is considerably cheaper than Radiant Charizard's Combustion Blast, albeit at the expense of damage output.

This Radiant starter's special ability is Pump Shot, which allows players to discard a Water Energy card from their hand and place two damage counters on one of their opponent's benched Pokemon.

So while Radiant Blastoise may not have the massive single-target damage its Fire-type counterpart has, it can effectively strike an opponent's bench for the cost of one Water Energy. This allows players to find a favorable matchup when taking on future Pokemon.

If Radiant Blastoise performs well against its opponent, tactful use of Pump Shot can allow players to force an opponent to pull a disadvantaged Pokemon from the bench.